Redesigned mural still has critics

The latest design for a restored mural at the old Mission Drive-In Theatre is a full-color rendering of the church at Mission San JosŽ, without any human figures. The city and its consultants removed two men in sombreros from its restoration of the 1940s mural, and added a mission wall and greenery.

Public Art San Antonio is coordinating the recreation of the historic Mission Drive-In marquee mural, which was orginally installed around 1948. Courtesy photo

Photo By Matt Hinton

Mission Drive-In as seen in June 1997.

Photo By CHARLES BARKSDALE/FILE

Mission Drive-In turned into a flea-market in this Dec. 1984 file photo.

Photo By Harry Thomas

Mission Drive-In

A restored 1940s mural at the old Mission Drive-In Theatre will have human figures, but you may have to look to find them.

A full-color mural design supported Wednesday by the Historic and Design Review Commission included small figures of a woman, children and man in the lower left corner. The city's Office of Cultural Affairs had struggled with ways to keep the church at Mission San José as the mural's focal point while addressing concerns from Native Americans.

Commissioner Harry Shafer said he was worried about the “very tiny images.”

Jimmy LeFlore, director of Public Art San Antonio, said the city and its consultant, SRO Associates, did not want to create a new focal point.

“We have really tried to stay with the idea of scale to the buildings,” he told commissioners.

The design of the restored mural on the movie marquee, which is 52 feet tall and 59 feet wide, was a source of controversy earlier this year. The original circa-1948 mural had images of two men in sombreros, one who appeared to be napping by the church, that some said were offensive by today's standards.

The design team removed those images and added trees and mission walls and chambers. But several Native Americans who attended a public meeting last month opposed a proposal to exclude any human figures from the mural. They said their ancestors, the indigenous people who built the mission, should somehow be part of the depiction.

The new design shows a woman in a shaded archway, with a child nearby in the daylight, and a man doing masonry work. The figures, while nondescript, are a “crucial reference to the community” that occupied the mission, and will take on more visual definition as they are developed for the large-scale mural, LeFlore said.

Though archival photos of the mural have been difficult to find, officials said they've tried to carefully replicate its historic character, using durable materials and a well researched color palette.

SRO plans to use acrylic paints that can withstand sun exposure, with a “graffiti resistant” coating. Flexible LED tubing will replicate the marquee's neon lighting. White lighting will be used to outline the object in the mural. Letters on the marquee will be highlighted with red or white lighting.

The $160,000 project, set for dedication in the fall, is part of redevelopment of the former outdoor theater site at 3100 Roosevelt Ave., which will include retail space and housing.

The commission also on Wednesday gave conceptual support of a new renovation design for Alamo Stadium, which was declared a state landmark last month by the Texas Historical Commission.

The design team for the $35 million renovation of the SAISD sports complex near Brackenridge Park agreed to relocate stairs and an elevator tower providing access to a new stadium press box. Preservationists asked that they be moved away from the stadium's main entrance, which has some of the structure's major character-defining features.